Hunger in America
The New York Times Magazine this week focused nearly an entire issue on hunger in America.
America at Hunger’s Edge focuses in words and photos on families across America who are patching together an existence with federal and state programs and local food banks.
The photos are stunning and shameful of course. That the wealthiest country in the world can’t feed its people is a deep and complex issue. It’s also embarrassing. It is certainly fixable. But as with all things now, this hunger comes down to a runaway money-making system that values wealth for some over more equality.
The key paragraph in the story is here:
“Our treatment of hunger as an emergency, rather than a symptom of systematic inequities, has long informed our response to it…government programs have been designed to alleviate each peak rather than to address the factors that produce them.’’
In other other words, we are good at fixing immediate issues but are really bad at addressing long-term problems. Too many people don’t have enough money to live a quality life in our society.
But more subtle and just as troubling is this. If you look closely at the photos in the story, you will see almost no actual food. By food I mean something planted in the ground, harvested, delivered to market and eaten by people for their health and enjoyment.
The food in the photos is not really food. The list is long - Kraft Stove Top, Juicy Juice, Price Rite Cola. Corns Flakes, hot dogs, white bread, french fries, Big Texas Cinnamon Roll.
I repeat. This is not food. This is chemical-laden junk that provides no nourishment to people and merely fills bellies with artificial colors and sweeteners. It is made in factories with one thought in mind: to sell as much of the stuff as possible to as many people as possible for the most amount of money possible.
Conflict note: Before people overreact to my “elitist’’ stance in demanding real food, I want you to know I have seen these factories. I have sat with the chief flavor designer at Kraft Foods and witnessed the planning and marketing that goes into these products.
Wonder why we have a health care crisis in this country with millions of obese people in semi-diabetic shock all day? It’s because so-called “food’’ companies like Kraft, Nestle, Tyson and Coke are allowed to pedal poison to unsuspecting families, especially ones that can’t afford real food. These companies keep the price down via massive federal government subsidies so poor people can afford their poisonous products. It’s also immoral.
Why is this important? Because eating poisonous food makes us unhealthy, which drives up the cost of health care for everyone and makes us a far less healthy, joyful and economically competitive place to live.
What to do? Force food companies to sell real food. If we are going to subsidize farmers and food makers, let’s require them to grow and sell real food, not poison. Defund big agriculture/food companies and send the money to local food systems and farmers.
